Life without men Scientists claim to have grown human sperm in a lab, and columnists and bloggers are musing on the possibility of a world where men are no longer needed.

Michael Hanlon in the Daily Mail is not looking forward to the prospect of a world that doesn't need men.

But if - and it is still a big if - scientists could one day use cells from female embryos to produce sperm, or perhaps even DNA extracted from an adult's skin or cheek-lining cells, then we truly would be living in a terrifying new era. The Daily Telegraph's Rowan Pelling says men are redundant but worth keeping for menial tasks. Yet I feel compelled - and not just as the mother of two small boys - to make a spirited defence of the weaker sex. Where would I be without my husband to read 80 pages of a car manual, in French, to find out how the back windscreen-wiper works? Who would tug the dried lumps of excrement from our cat's backside? Who would explain the rules of cricket to an American? Who would clear a blocked drain of unspeakable clotted matter? Who would take hours to demonstrate the dreadnought manoeuvres at the Battle of Jutland, armed only with salt cellars and jam jars? Without men, there would be no one to read Joseph Conrad or Norman Mailer, to remove spiders from the bath, or (important one, this) to tell women they're pretty. The editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics John Harris says in the Independent that he sees nothing wrong with exercising choice but the real ethical issue isn't about the prospect of a world without men. Women have many ways of trying to do without men. They don't need men - they just need their sperm. Sperm is a notoriously renewable resource and it is plentiful. There is always the turkey baster option for women who want to get pregnant but do not see the need to get a man... The real ethical issue here is that we do not foreclose the beneficial possibilities of research through prejudice or fear.

The man himself, who made sperm from stem cells Emily Cook in the Daily Mirror can only think of one useful man and that's scientist Karim Nayernia, who conducted the sperm research: Women have always known that men are a bit of a waste of space … Now British scientists have proved how unnecessary blokes truly are by creating the first human sperm from stem cells. And as if that's not a big enough problem for fellas everywhere, the expert behind this revolutionary move is a man. And Blog Tactic says despite the scientific developments, men should be kept around as play-things. That means men can become redundant in the human productive cycle and the end of male infertility. But for the ladies, I think we should keep a few of them around just for fun. And for those anti-gay, it is an efficient way to cure male homosexuality: abolish men. Karen on the Macleans.ca blog hints at how complex the politics of parenting may become by linking to the UK government's current meanings of mother and father. The definitions are more than 5,000 words long. On the same blog Last Man on Earth says: WE MUST CRUSH THIS! Take away their funding, burn all evidence, delete all records, kidnap and kill those who made the discovery and then bury this entire story under some celebrity scandal. Men can't become irrelevant! In the Culture Watch blog Bill Muehlenberg is concerned the advances may leave men with nothing to do: … what they are really about is the end of man - both as the male gender, and as humanity … A number of problems come to mind, including the obvious: if scientists can now manufacture sperm, that simply makes males even more redundant than they already are. This is really parthenogenesis, or procreation by one sex alone. This might be good for amoebas, but it is not good for human beings, and certainly not good for the children who come about by such a process. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8142104.stm

mettaChris

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

Every sperm is sacred,Every sperm is good,Every sperm is needed,In your neighborhood.

Every sperm is sacred,Every sperm is great,If a sperm is wasted,God gets quite irate.

mettaChris

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

BUT - if every sperm cannot be guaranteed to be female .... we have a PROBLEM!

Why do men have nipples? Every fetus starts out essentially female. The XY fetus needs to be andogenized by the proper hormones at the proper time to get a fully functioning male. If androgenization is totally prevented in the XY fetus you potentially end up with a female.

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723

>> Do you see a man wise[enlightened/ariya]in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<<-- Proverbs 26:12

My initial thoughts are about how horrific the workplace would become. I've heard many women comment on how when there's a disproportionately high percentage of women in the workplace, it can become incredibly bitchy and hurtful.

Agreed. Each gender has their own advantages and disadvantages. It's sad but true, the two genders are not 'equal'. I, for example, would live in a cess pit if my wife wasn't there to moan at me to clean, but it should be noted that generally with males visual perception and logic are stronger. This is why there are many more male physicists than female. We ARE different, and the Buddha must have recognised this when he gave the vinaya rules because the rules for men and women are different in places.

This is not to say any gender has more 'worth', no! Each gender is needed! Society needs balance.

Spare a thought for those born without a well-defined gender. My mother is a midwife and I hear that it's more common than people realise.

Edit: incidentally, my wife and I once shared a house with another couple (before we were married) and Louise (the other woman in the house) once remarked, 'look at the screw. There's no way a woman would have intented something so obscene'. I had to point out that screws are REALLY useful, but she was so attached to her 'men are a subspecies' mindset she couldn't see how ridiculous she was being.

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

For me, its an indifferent thing. Yes, one maybe able to grow sperm from wherever, theoretically making males redundant.But is such a world likely?Probably not!Kind regards

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725